Poll: Code with AI or Not?
25 pointsby bitbasher2 hours ago14 comments
  • pan692 hours ago
    I'd consider myself a very experienced (~30 years), but mediocre dev, and this AI thing has completely transformed my capabilities as a software developer. People compare AI to a "smart junior" or something like it. To me, it's more the mentor I never had. When I have AI review code that I wrote, I will point out things I would either have never thought of, or would have taken me weeks or months of going back and forth to figure out. There are lots of things in software development that I hate doing, such as CSS/HTML, AI is now filling the gap that used to be an obstacle for me. With AI this now has become fun as it feels like I am not alone working on this thing. What it produces, I can understand and I review its work as well as vica-verca. I mostly use it in assistant mode. I do not have an army of agents running (yet).
  • lkbm2 hours ago
    Yes, just also be sure to spend some time writing "by hand".
    • lolsowrong2 hours ago
      I agree with this, but I’m also curious: what would have to change before that advice is as sound as “write a little bit of assembly by hand” or the even more ridiculous “just write the raw bytes for the program in a hex editor?”
      • bjt28 minutes ago
        Even with LLMs, we need a way to translate between the imprecise plain English description of a program and the completely-unambiguous level of code. You need the ability to see when the LLM has resolved ambiguities in the wrong direction and steer it back. If you can't speak code, that's going to be a very error-prone process.
      • sarchertech2 hours ago
        When I can look at a prompt and predict what the code it outputs will look like to some high degree of accuracy.

        I mostly don’t think that is possible though because there’s too much ambiguity in natural language. So the answer is probably when AI is close enough to AGI that I can treat it like an actual trusted senior engineer that I’m delegating to.

        • lolsowrong3 minutes ago
          Can you look at code today and predict what assembly a compiler will output to some high degree of accuracy? Do you avoid certain classes of compiler optimization so you can more accurately predict compiler output? I recall a time where many compilers would remove a bzero() operation in situations where you’re trying to zero out a buffer that had sensitive data in it - it’s why we have APIs like https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/win32/blob/docs/desktop-src.... I ran into a huge performance regression because I didn’t have all the edges of named return value optimization in mind when I refactored some code.

          There’s ambiguity in the x86 specification, such that you can execute a single instruction and get different results in intel vs amd. See the rcpss instruction, for example.

          I get that LLMs are categorically different, and they’re absolutely not as reliable as compilers are, but compilers are also not as reliable as compilers seem. And even less predictable IMO.

      • recursive2 hours ago
        A compiler is a reliable layer of abstraction using documented structured languages. For me it would need to be that.
  • 77773322152 hours ago
    Only use chatting to get answers for various things, often cross referenced with Google results, dedicated forums, and reddit. For programming/software work I use it to try to find problems with my architectural/design decisions, find new libraries, and best practices. I do not use it for code gen, instead I leverage high level deterministic (non ai) tools to do more with less code.
  • mpalmer2 hours ago
    It's not going to tell us much because we don't know the standard of code quality that respondents hold themselves to.
    • fdgg2 hours ago
      True, but easier to see consensus than reading through a thread that is filled with a variety of posts in terms of usefulness.
      • bitbasheran hour ago
        Yes-- this is what I wanted. I wanted to get an idea of where most people fall.
  • an hour ago
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  • Rodeoclash2 hours ago
    My flow is the AI writes most of the code, I closely review, question and tweak everything that comes out. My commits are about the same size as they were. Don't vibe code or one shot features.
  • throwaway20372 hours ago
    For me, I used it find libraries to solve a problem that I didn't know about. Or to debug confusing error messages when library/language docs are insufficient.
  • bossyTeacher2 hours ago
    This has to be the first poll I have ever seen on this website
    • marcosdumay2 hours ago
      They use to be more common, but polls have low odds of being productive.
      • fdgg2 hours ago
        I hope this thread/poll sparks productive and effective discussion on the subject.
  • TRiG_Ireland2 hours ago
    I was made redundant (from a web dev job) a couple of years ago, and have been looking for a new job. But the thought of coding with an LLM gives me the heebie jeebies. The very idea makes my skin crawl. I think I need to find a new industry. I don't yet know what.
  • tobr2 hours ago
    Are you asking what I do or are you asking for advice on what you should do?
    • re-thc2 hours ago
      Sounds like neither. More like throw a dice and press the up button.
    • NamlchakKhandro2 hours ago
      Yes
  • Shitty-kittyan hour ago
    There is a category missing between "as much as you can" and "chatting".

    Yes, as a better autocomplete.

  • an hour ago
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  • zenon_paradoxan hour ago
    [dead]
  • jezek2an hour ago
    I don't think it's wise to use it for anything. Even when chatting with an LLM you would have to check everything yourself which nobody would truly do. The generated code can't be really trusted (and nobody will review everything, quite the opposite). It can also have copyright issues.

    People are allergic to articles and documentation generated/processed by LLM.

    You're switching from an active role to a passive one, meaning your skill will suffer over the time. There is a huge difference between doing the things and thinking you know what it's doing. It's harder to review bad generated code because how polished it looks, compared to code made by humans where the difference is much more obvious.

    Code assistants seem to work great when dealing with boilerplate, but wouldn't be better to get rid of the need for the boilerplate in the first place?